Right Hook: The Tactics of Conservative Criticism (pt.2)

In Chavs, author Owen
Jones argues that media caricatures and opportunistic politicians have helped
shape the image of the British working class as feckless, scrounging criminals,
or 'chavs'. We direct a level of ire toward this people that would be
unthinkable were the word 'chav' replaced with 'black', 'gay' or even 'pleb',
which alone shows how unacceptable it is. Yet this vilification of 'chavs',
combined with the fact that many of us consider ourselves 'middle class',
obscures the simple fact that a majority of people in the UK fit a fairly
reasonable definition of working class, and, on top of this, these people are
not work shy louts.

A lot of the conservative criticism of this book seems to miss the point.
"Chav is not commonly understood as shorthand for working-class; it is
shorthand for violent, work-shy louts who ruin perfectly good
neighbourhoods", writes Tim
Stanley. But why do we have a shorthand for these people when they are in
poor neighbourhoods, but not when they are in middle class or upper class
neighbourhoods? Stanley reckons that anyone can be a chav, but I've not often
seen, say, the Bullingdon
Club referred to as such. 'Ordinary' people who commit crimes are
simply called...criminals, or
perhaps 'bad eggs', or even something less affectionate, but they do not earn
their own collectively derisory
term. There is also no doubt that, while some may use the term chav sparingly,
overall it helps to tarnish entire communities, as so aptly demonstrated by the
media treatment of the Kidnapping
of Shannon Matthews. Jones does not defend the working class as chavs; he says that they have
been charactised by it, and their reality has been obscured.

Critics such as Stanley argue Jones is "simultaneously conflating and
defending the working class and chavs", and questions the need for the
"anachronistic" idea of a 'working class' at all. Yet Jones spends a
substantial amount of time discussing what the concept really means. He defines
'working class' in the (loosely) Marxist sense as somebody who has to work for
another to get by, though he also adds that it is less applicable to
professionals, who have a lot of control over their working lives. Jones makes
it clear that the popular 'we're all middle class now' myth is simply not
reflected by the facts: around half the British work force are in low pay,
menial, often insecure jobs. However, the decline of unions, coupled with the
increasingly atomised nature of this work, has thwarted attempts to restore
working class solidarity.

For some,
Jones' treatment of the working class essentially robs them of autonomy, and
paints them as gullible to politician's propaganda, unable to fend for
themselves. This is really a superficial reading that is generally only
achieved by quoting Jones' arguments selectively. For example, Peter
Cuthbertson characterises Jones' position as "[the working class]
may say they want welfare reform and an end to mass immigration, but don’t take
that at face value". Yet Jones notes that many of the people he
interviewed were incredibly clued up about the real nature of problems such as
housing shortages, and viewed even their own opposition to immigration in a
similar way that Jones did: an unfortunate, second-best solution to a much
bigger problem.

It's true that when talking about income, employment and so forth, Jones
tends to emphasise the systemic aspects such as the decline of industry in
local communities, but this is something that even critics such as Cuthberson
do not deny is a major factor, and is virtually impossible for individuals to
control. On the other hand, when Jones is talking about people themselves, he
goes to great lengths to praise them, precisely in the name of combating the 'chav' caricature. For
instance, Jones places a lot of emphasis on the pulling together of the people
of Dewsbury after Shannon Matthews was kidnapped, and warns that it is
dangerous to lump the 'working class' together, as they are obviously a diverse
group of people.

Conservatives often seem to think that even mentioning class is a patronising attack on
'aspiration', but pretending the UK is some sort of 'meritocracy' in the face
of the evidence Jones presents to the contrary is simply deluded. As Jones
points out, it is simply a fact that
some people will always have to do 'working class' jobs: clean the streets,
drive the buses etc. These jobs are, in fact, the most important jobs in
society, and attempts to improve the lot of the people who do them as a group,
instead of encouraging them to 'escape' is recognition of this fact, not -
as Brendan
O'Neill puts it - anything to do with making sure they "know
their place" (remember: under
socialism, everyone would have to the shit work!)

Thankfully, unlike the other books in this post, the initial wave of
criticism does seem to have been displaced by a more reasoned approach from
both sides. TheEconomist, to its credit, gave a fair review of the book,
noting that although sections on Thatcherism might be disputed by some, and a
large amount of evidence was "inevitably...subjective and anecdotal",
the central point of the book was "depressingly difficult to argue
with". Even some of the aforementioned reviewers I have linked to have
acknowledged there is at least a grain of truth to the 'chav' hypothesis; if
they could overcome their priors about class and meritocracy, they might be
more sympathetic overall.

Tomorrow

Out of all 3 books, the reactions to this one were easily the worst. If you
were to believe these reviews - and before reading the book, even I was
somewhat taken in by them - the author, Naomi Klein, was a polemicist, a liar,
a hack, or even - as one delightful commenter put it - "a cunt".
Klein's hypothesis was that disasters - both natural and man made - were often
harnessed to push through unpalatable neoliberal economic reforms, to the
detriment of many. This, combined with her attacks on Milton Friedman, did
not sit well with 'free market' advocates, who generally see themselves as on
the side of freedom. The book was therefore attacked quite vehemently by the
libertarian right...

Keep
up to date with the latest thinking on some of the day's biggest issues
and get instant access to our members-only features, such as the News Dashboard, Reading List, Bookshelf & Newsletter. It's completely free.

Featured Expert

It's possible that a society of educated people is likely to be more cultured and scientific-minded than one of non-graduates, and this should have positive externalities in the form of better political discourse and higher culture. There is, however, little evidence of this in practice.